Essay Questions

Elaine convinces herself that she is no longer emotionally constrained by her experiences as a bullied child. Is she correct?

Elaine is convinced that she has put the bullying behind her. She might be correct in the sense that what was actually done to her physically is no longer something that she is influenced or traumatized by; however, she is clearly still affected by the betrayal of her two so-called best friends, Grace and Carole, and the way in which they so readily abandoned their friendship in order to follow Cordelia's lead. Even her artwork shows that she is trying desperately to convince herself that she is over the episode when she is not.

Another way in which she demonstrates the fact that the bullying still affects her into adulthood is her constant attempts to reconnect with Cordelia and to make her be a good friend when this is something she is clearly not capable of. She continues to treat Cordelia as someone who understands the giving nature of friendship when to Cordelia friendship is entirely a selfish concept.

How is parental influence demonstrated in the novel?

Although the main parent/child relationship looked at in the novel is that of Elaine and her nomadic, unusual parents, it is also possible to see the parental influence in the relationship between Grace and her mother; when Elaine accompanies Grace and her family to church - her very first church-going experience - Grace's mother treats her as a bit of an oddity and is not much kinder to her than her daughter is. This shows that the way in which Grace sees her mother treat other people influences her treating them with unkindness and disregard as well.